January 5, 2013

Vaccines
have been in the news a lot lately, and they likely will continue to be for
quite some time. I want to start this explanation by stating that I don’t tell
my patients to refrain from getting vaccines. Vaccinations can be a good thing,
and it would be hard to refute the fact that some vaccines have helped to save
many lives in the last 60 years. When my patients ask me about vaccines, I tell
them that the best thing they can do is to get informed about the vaccinations
they’re considering and make a decision that takes into consideration all the
related risks and benefits. That said, here are a few of the vaccines that have
been under fire recently:

Influenza
vaccines: Commonly called flu
shots, a number of vaccinations for the influenza virus are on the
market today. Some of these vaccines include a chemical called thimerosal,
which contains mercury. Thimerosal is used as a
preservative in these influenza vaccines, and it’s about half mercury, by
weight. The toxicity of the mercury in thimerisol is currently being debated,
but no matter which side of the debate you fall on, here’s some good news: Some
influenza vaccines do not contain
thimerisol, so you have options if you want to get a flu shot but don’t want to
also get a dose of mercury.

The
bad news is that mercury-free shots can be difficult to locate, and some
doctors don’t know which type they have. In some states, the mercury-free
versions are reserved for Medicaid patients. The FDA has a lot of thimerosal
information on its Web site, including a list that shows you some of the
vaccines that do not contain the substance. Check out www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm.

Diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis
(DTP) vaccines:
Many forms of the DTP vaccine, which is commonly given to infants, contain both
aluminium and formaldehyde. Some people argue that the amounts of these toxins in
the vaccine are minimal and don’t cause any problems; others contend that the
substances are dangerous no matter how small the amount.

Polio vaccines: Many of the polio vaccines made today
are processed through the cells of Green Monkey kidneys. In previous decades, monkey
viruses have contaminated polio vaccine doses, and those doses were given to
the general public before the virus was discovered. Many researchers claim that
the problem is behind us, but some scientists believe we still need to be
concerned.

Hepatitis B vaccines: Most of the controversy surrounding
vaccines for hepatitis B centers on the use of the vaccine in children. U.S.
government data has shown that children under the age of 14 are as much as
three times more likely to suffer adverse effects from the hepatitis B vaccine
as they are to catch the disease in the absence of a vaccination.

Your
body gets rid of toxins in a couple of key ways. The first is the elimination
of toxins; you have systems in place that simply flush the bad stuff out. The
second is chemical detoxification, which occurs when various parts of your body
— the liver is a top example — break down toxins into simpler, less harmful
materials that are usually shuttled out of the body in your waste products.

Toxin
elimination

When
you talk about the natural elimination of toxins from your body, your kidneys
deserve center stage. Sure, some organs have a higher profile — your brain and
heart come to mind — but when it comes to sorting out toxins and putting them
on the first fast train out (usually into the toilet), nothing beats the
kidneys. They’re especially adept at clearing out water-soluble toxins.

Many fat-soluble toxins that can’t be
whisked away by your kidneys or broken down by your liver (more on that organ
in a moment) get sequestered in your fat cells, where they become a constant
source of toxicity. How do you get rid of those toxins? You sweat the small
stuff and the big stuff and everything in between. Sweating is a remarkable detoxification
technique; several different kinds of toxins can be removed from your body only
through sweating.

Chemical detoxification

Chemical detoxification takes place
when one of your body’s parts breaks down the chemical structure of a toxin so
it’s no longer harmful. The process starts in your nose and mouth, where immune
cells begin busting up toxic substances. The tonsils do a lot of work on toxins
before they continue toward your stomach, where some of the most potent acid in
the natural world goes to work on a breadth of toxins. That brings it to the
liver. Your liver is a fantastic chemical processing plant, and it can break
down toxins that range from ammonia to alcohol.

When
you think about toxins, you can consider them poisons. You don’t want poisons
floating around in your body, do you? Toxins can affect virtually every system
and part of your body, causing a massive decrease in efficiency and function.
Toxins also cause disease. Removing toxins — and avoiding them in the first
place — can have some truly startling positive effects on your health. Here are
just a few examples:

Increasing energy: Many toxins directly affect the
production of energy in your body, and when your toxic levels are high you have
far less energy than you would enjoy if your systems were toxin free (or close to
it). The more toxins you can remove and keep out, the more energy you’ll have.

Boosting immune function: Your immune system plays a major
part in detoxification. The more it has to work toward getting rid of toxins,
the less work it can do on its normal tasks (such as preventing infections and
killing cancer cells). Getting rid of toxins makes life easier for your immune
system, which allows it to do its job effectively.

Managing stress: We usually think of stress as an
emotional response to an unwanted situation. That’s definitely one cause of
stress, but toxins can put even more stress on your body, which reacts the same
to emotional stress and toxic stress. Stress harms your body in many different
ways, including (but not limited to) organ damage and brain problems. Managing
toxic and emotional stress can be a major contributor to good health.

Decreasing fat: Everyone needs a little stored
energy, and fat is one of the ways you fulfill that need. Unfortunately, many
of us are storing enough energy (in the form of fat) for several people. That’s
a medical problem — a very serious one. In addition to the strain obesity puts
on your cardiovascular system, there’s a toxic element of obesity that many
people don’t understand. Fat-soluble toxins are stored in your fat cells, and
these cells release toxins into your bloodstream on a regular basis. You have
to get the toxins out of the fat cells before you can reduce the fat. Then,
with less fat, the toxins have fewer places to hide.

So
what is detoxification, anyway? It’s any process that removes a substance that
is injurious to your body or that changes a toxic substance so it’s no longer
injurious. Dozens of different detoxification methods exist, and I cover the
most useful and important ones — including diet, which is the most critical of
all — throughout this book. Broadly speaking, though, you can split detoxification
up into two categories: internal and external.

Internal

Our
bodies have an extraordinarily complex array of systems that change, break down,
attack and destroy, or eliminate threats to our internal environment and health.
For thousands of years these systems have helped humans to enjoy relatively
good basic health, but for most of those years the exposure to toxins was very
low and rarely caused a problem. That’s not so today. The primary internal
systems for detoxification are the stomach, intestines, liver, immune system,
kidneys, and lungs. Each one works in a different way to keep us as clean as
possible, and you can enhance the detox power of each system.

External

When
it comes to external detoxification, your skin is second to none. Your skin
serves as an important barrier that keeps many toxins from entering your body.
Your sweat glands, which are extremely important sites for detoxification, are
also housed in your skin.

I
coined the term toxic anger to convey the fact that certain subtypes of anger can
be poisonous, even lethal. Other forms of anger are benign (nontoxic) and
really cannot hurt you in any appreciable way. The trick is to know which is
which.

Annoyances
count

In
one study where 50 college students were asked to keep a weekly diary of how
often they got annoyed or angry, they recorded 1,536 instances of emotion. The
average student reported getting angry seven times a week, roughly once a day.
However, the average student also reported feeling annoyed 24 times a week or
approximately 3 times a day. In other words, their report of anger was four
times greater when they included milder forms of emotions like annoyance.

Anger
is just a word — a fairly meaningless concept — until you break it down into
something that can be quantified.

At
least once a day Chronic irritation Chronic anger Chronic rage. Which category
did you fall into? Does it make the problem more real when you put these types
of labels on it? I find that most people are comfortable with terms like
irritated and angry, but they don’t like the label rage at all.

Episodic
anger

Slightly
more than a third (36 percent) of those sampled acknowledged the fact that they
got angry a couple of times a week. This
is our first glimpse at what I call toxic anger. Approximately 15 percent of
the sample readily admitted to getting this angry on occasion, although not
daily. I like to refer to these individuals as sleeping lions or occasional hotheads
— they’re fine until they get aroused, and then watch out!

Chronic
irritation

You
may think that chronic irritation is a problem, but it’s really not all that toxic.
People may see you as moody or bitchy, but they still tolerate you most of the
time. Interestingly, only about 2 percent of people fall in this category —
thank goodness.

Chronic
anger

This
is the second category of toxic anger. It included 11 percent of those surveyed,
people like Nathan, a retired salesman who finds himself getting angry repeatedly
every day about one thing or another. “I get mad when my wife takes too long
shopping, when things break around the house, when gas prices go up — just
about anything that doesn't suit me,” he says. “But don’t get me wrong — I
don’t go off the deep end and rant and rave.” Like many people, he thinks he doesn't have a problem with anger because it never rises to the level of
uncontrollable rage — but he’s wrong. It’s just not healthy to be angry as
frequently as he is.

Chronic
rage

This
is our worst-case example of toxic anger. I’m sorry to say that 12 percent of
those responding fell into this subgroup. If you find yourself in this group, your
anger is volatile (as in volcano!) and there’s absolutely no question that anger
is poisoning just about every aspect of your life. This type of anger is dangerous
and serves no useful purpose.

Here’s
how you can garner all the support you need in order to succeed at anger
management:

·Keep
in mind that most people want to be supportive — they’re just waiting on you to
give them an opportunity. Take the initiative and ask your closest friends and
family members for their support. Support that goes unrecognized or unused does
you no good. Most people have far more support than they take advantage of.
This is no time to think, “I don’t want to be a burden on anyone.” Believe me,
you’re more of a burden when you’re angry than when you’re not!

·Be
willing to give support to your friends and family in turn. Support must be
reciprocal. In order to receive it, you must give it.

·Keep
in mind that no one person can satisfy all your support needs. One person may
be able to offer emotional support, while another may help out in a more
tangible way. Don’t be too surprised if, at first, you have trouble getting
support for your efforts at anger management. Remember: You've probably hurt a
lot of people with your anger over the years — and they may have some lingering
resentment, fear, and uncertainty. That’s natural. But if you’re truly committed
to managing your anger, chances are they’ll eventually rally to your cause.

January 4, 2013

When
your brain is injured by stroke, it mounts a significant response to repair the
damage and clean up the mess. The result is similar to what happens anywhere
when you injure yourself. White blood cells are activated to absorb dead and
dying cell debris and carry it away in the bloodstream. Some brain cells form a
kind of scar tissue on the edges of the injury. When the stroke is larger than
a few cells, a small cavity, which fills with a clear or yellow fluid, forms in
the brain. When a red stroke heals, it often stains the brain yellow because
the white cells change the color of the red pigment of blood in the process of cleaning
up the blood clot. This is similar to the yellow tinge that you may have seen
as a bruise heals.

Evidence
indicates that part of the healing process for the brain may include some sort
of rewiring. The younger you are, the more extensive the rewiring is, and the
more rapidly it occurs. What actually happens in the cells is something of a
mystery. Whether new cells are formed as part of the process remains unclear,
but we do know that new connections are formed.

One of
the best-studied examples of rewiring is when patients with normal vision
become blind. When their brains are studied several years later, it is clear that
the part of the brain that used to respond to visual stimuli now responds to
touch in the fingers as the patients read Braille.

TPA:
Clot-buster to the rescue.

One
Saturday morning, a 75-year-old man was in his yard when he developed a
headache, right-side weakness, and confusion. Neighbors called EMS. He was
brought to the emergency department of a mid-sized Midwestern hospital.

When
first examined, he couldn't lift his right arm, the right side of his face
drooped, and his right leg was weak. He was unable to talk and did not seem to
understand what was being said to him.

He was
taken for a CT scan immediately. No blood was seen on the CT. Because of his
symptoms, the doctor taking care of him thought that the problem was probably
in the left internal carotid artery or one of its main branches. Because there
was no bleeding seen on the CT scan to suggest a red stroke, the doctor assumed
this was a white ischemic stroke caused by a blood clot blocking an artery.

The
doctor on call gave TPA, tissue plasminogen activator, a commonly used
clot-buster for stroke patients, to dissolve the blood clot two hours after the
stroke started. The patient had recovered the use of his right leg and could speak
and understand words to some extent.

This
man owes a lot to his quick-thinking neighbors who got him to an emergency
room so fast. After a stroke, brain function generally improves some with time.
This is true regardless of the type of stroke. The improvement is more rapid in
the first few weeks and months and is thought to be greater if other problems,
such as muscle contractures and atrophy of muscles, are prevented. Occupational,
speech, and physical therapy all incorporate exercises to aid in
rehabilitation. Recent research indicates that such therapy may play an important
role in stimulating brain rewiring and regrowth. Naturally, the larger the
brain injury is, the less you will be able to recover.

The
picture that you see as your brain peers through your eyes and out into the
world travels to the visual cortex in the very back of the brain. The scene each
eye picks up goes to the brain stem, to a little junction box. Nerve fibers from
the junction box send this data across the middle of the brain stem and to the
very back of the brain where it’s projected on the opposite side. For example,
what your eyes see to the upper left is shown on the lower right part of the
map.

Hearing
is presented on a whole series of little maps that arrange the pitch by frequency.
The hearing cortex is located between the more straightforward mechanical areas
that coordinate movement and the areas where more emotional functions are known
to reside.

Ordinary
touch is mapped according to the position on the body, just like the area
responsible for simple movements. Taste and smell have their own special
locations in the brain stem and frontal cortex just above the nose.

Fact
is, neither you nor I nor your doctor knows for certain whether a stroke is in
your future. It’s not really possible to predict with any certainty exactly who
will suffer a stroke. To some extent, having a stroke is a matter of bad luck. But
we do know that certain characteristics place you at a greater risk for stroke.
We know that you are more prone to this particular form of bad luck if you have
high blood pressure, smoke cigarettes, and/or have heart disease, diabetes, or
high blood cholesterol levels. Researchers have identified a number of
indicators that can help predict the likelihood of stroke. Some you can
influence; others you can’t.

Because
of a number of possible causes of stroke — part of your brain may be deprived
of blood. When that happens, it doesn't take long for your brain to suffer. In
a nutshell, the glucose and oxygen transported by one of the brain’s arteries
are not reaching some part of the brain, which in less than a minute will begin
to shut down. And you will show signs of stroke.

The
50 professional groups forming the Brain Attack Coalition describe the signs of
stroke as follows:

·Sudden
numbness or weakness of face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body

·Sudden
confusion, trouble speaking or understanding speech

·Sudden
trouble seeing in one or both eyes

·Sudden
trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination

·Sudden
severe headache with no known cause

Most
of the time, a stroke victim feels no pain as the stroke is occurring — so
there is not much evidence to clue you in that the reason your hand looks funny
and doesn't move when you want is because there’s something wrong in your head.

Most
people who have a stroke don’t know what is happening to them. Most people who
see someone who’s had a stroke don’t know what is happening. A stroke doesn't hurt (except if a headache accompanies it), and its most obvious effects are
far from the brain where the problem is located. This means a lot of people
don’t recognize they are having a stroke and can’t use the opportunities they
have to get into the hospital quickly and be treated.

January 3, 2013

Body
mass index (BMI) is a calculation that uses your child’s height and weight to
estimate how much body fat he has. Your doctor uses BMI to determine whether
your child is the appropriate weight for his age and height.

From
the age of 2 years, a BMI check forms part of your child’s regular checkups. The
doctor checks your child’s BMI against other children and then puts the
measurements on a standard child growth chart. There are separate charts for
boys and girls to account for growth and body fat differences. After several checks,
a pattern emerges and your doctor can track your child’s growth.

BMI
can be a helpful measurement if your child’s at risk of becoming overweight as
he gets older. In older children, there’s a strong link between BMI and body
fat. A child with higher BMI readings will probably have weight problems when
he’s older. If your child has high BMI readings, take steps to change his diet
and exercise habits. BMI isn’t a perfect measurement. Children gain weight
quickly – for example, during puberty – and a high BMI may be due to a high
muscle mass. Monitor BMI as a trend rather than individual numbers.

If
you want your child to eat healthily, you need to serve her a wide variety of nutritious
foods for energy, growth, and development. This means giving processed and junk
foods a wide berth – but it doesn't mean not being flexible. Food isn't worth
arguing over, and if your child insists on eating curly cheesy crisps, that’s
fine – as long as they don’t form her staple diet. If most of the food your
child eats is nutritious, you’ll be keeping her in tip-top condition. Try doing
the following to make sure that she eats well:

Give
your child at least five helpings of fruit and vegetables a day – fresh,
frozen, canned, dried, or juiced. You’re probably already aware of this
important point, but there’s no harm in stressing it again. Fruits and vegetables
contain the crucial nutrients needed to maintain a healthy digestive system,
create new body tissue, fight infections, and a lot more. Try to offer your
child at least one orange and one green fruit or vegetable every day, as they
are known to be particularly beneficial and may help to prevent cancer and
other serious diseases. Fruit or vegetable juice only makes up one of her daily
portions of fruit and vegetables, no matter how much she drinks. That’s because
other goodies in the flesh are not included in juice, and digesting whole fruit
and vegetables benefits her system.

Make
sure that your child eats breakfast. Studies show that if your child eats
breakfast, she’s far less likely to become obese in later life. Skipping breakfast
can cause blood-sugar problems and make your child’s metabolism sluggish, which
is bad for the digestive system. Most experts say that breakfast’s the most
important meal of the day: Breakfast eaters are less likely to contract
diabetes or have high cholesterol, which is a known risk factor for heart
disease.

Maintain
your own healthy diet. You’re important too! Eating healthy food yourself is
one of the best ways of getting your child into good habits, so make sure that
you tuck in to your greens. Studies also show that children who have regular
family mealtimes are more likely to have healthier diets than those who don’t.
Snacking in front of the TV is a definite no-no.

Offer
as much unprocessed food as possible, and get into the habit of reading labels
on the foods you serve. Check for things such as hidden fats, sugars,
additives, and salt. Foods with lots of preservatives and added flavourings are
often deficient in essential nutrients and high in unhealthy (and unnecessary)
chemicals. Salt’s a particular danger – it can cause health problems, including
high blood pressure and heart conditions. And sugar (and sugar substitutes),
additives, and coloring's have been linked with everything from behavioral problems to physical ailments.

Get
your child to drink six to eight glasses of water a day. Drinking enough fluids
is vital. Water’s the best drink by far – try to keep sugary drinks and juices
to a minimum, and don’t serve them at all between meals because they are lethal
to tiny teeth. The British medical profession has been telling us for many
years that most children aren't drinking enough. Dehydration leads to many
short-term and long-term health problems: Lack of water can cause headaches,
constipation, and poor concentration, to name but a few things. A good way to
tell whether your child’s dehydrated is to check the color of her urine. Her
urine should be a pale straw color If it’s dark yellow, she may well be
dehydrated. A sunken fontanelle (the soft spot on a baby’s head) can also
indicate dehydration.

The
term prediabetes hasn’t been around long. In fact, it was first used in 2002.
It was introduced by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and by then–Health
and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. There were a number of reasons
for the introduction of this term:

·The
terms impaired fasting glucose and impaired glucose tolerance were meaningless
to patients and required a lot of explaining.

·Other
terms, like touch of sugar and borderline diabetes, were generally meaningless.

·Studies
such as the Diabetes Prevention Program showed that diet and exercise resulting
in a weight loss as little as 5 to 7 percent of someone’s initial weight would
lower the incidence of type 2 diabetes by up to 58 percent.

·A
broadly understandable term was needed so that patients could know where they
were and where they had to go with respect to diabetes.

These
people stood to benefit from lifestyle modification and other treatments.

Studies
at the time showed that most people with prediabetes would go on to develop
diabetes within ten years unless they made relatively modest changes in diet
and exercise. Therefore, the ADA and Secretary Thompson put together an expert
panel of doctors and other diabetes experts. The panel report stated that
intervention in prediabetes is critical for three reasons:

Just having glucose levels in the prediabetic
range puts a person at a 50
percent greater risk of a heart attack or stroke.

The
development of type 2 diabetes can be delayed or prevented by modest lifestyle
change.

For
many people, modest changes in lifestyle can turn back the clock and return
elevated blood glucose levels to normal.

Along
with the new term, the ADA recommended that physicians begin to screen their
patients for prediabetes at age 45. Screening was especially important for
people who answered yes to these questions:

·Do
you have a relative with type 2 diabetes or heart disease?

·Are
you overweight or obese?

·Do
you have high blood pressure?

·Do
you have a sedentary lifestyle?

·Do
you have high levels of triglycerides and/or low levels of HDL cholesterol (both
being types of fats measured in a blood test)?

·Do
you belong to a higher-risk ethnic group, such as African American, Latino, or
Asian American/Pacific Islander?

·Do
you have apple-shaped rather than pear-shaped weight distribution? This means
your excess weight is around your stomach rather than your hips.

·For
women who have had children, did you develop diabetes during the pregnancy or
have a baby who weighed more than 9 pounds at birth?

·For
women, is there a history of polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that may
include lack of periods, infertility, and increased hair on the body?

These
days, if you can answer no to all these questions, you may be from outer space.
So most doctors just screen all people over age 45.

Just
what is a mental disorder? Diagnosing an emotional problem doesn’t come about
with a simple chemical analysis or blood test. Psychiatrists, psychologists,
and other mental health professionals typically refer to a document called the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) for determining the criteria for any
specific diagnosis of an emotional disorder.

The
reason professionals do so is to communicate with each other by using an
agreed-on set of standards, which the DSM provides. For example, the most
recent revision of the DSM states that to have a diagnosis of major depressive
disorder, you must suffer from depression for at least two weeks and experience
five or more symptoms. Well, some people have only four symptoms, but the
symptoms continue for 12 weeks or more. Does that mean that these folks don’t
have a major depressive disorder? That’s one of the reasons the DSM is controversial;
it isn’t always clear if someone perfectly fits a given diagnosis.

Therefore,
the DSM is constantly under revision and is considered imperfect in many ways. Professionals
continue to disagree with aspects of the diagnostic criteria.

January 2, 2013

There
are almost 300 named psychiatric disorders, and schizophrenia is one of them.
Although many mental illnesses have symptoms that overlap, schizophrenia has a
distinct pattern of symptoms. No two cases of schizophrenia look exactly the
same, but most people with schizophrenia display three types of symptoms:

Positive
symptoms: The term positive symptoms is confusing, because positive symptoms
(as the term might suggest) aren’t “good” symptoms at all. They’re symptoms
that add to reality, and not in a good way. People with schizophrenia hear things
that don’t exist or see things that aren’t there (in what are known as
hallucinations). The voices they hear can accuse them of terrible things and
can be very jarring (for example, causing them to think that they’ve hurt
someone or have been responsible for some cataclysmic world event).

People
with schizophrenia can also have delusions (false beliefs that defy logic or
any culturally specific explanation and that cannot be changed by logic or
reason). For example, an individual may believe that there is a conspiracy of
people driving red cars that follows his every movement. He will use the fact
that there are red cars everywhere he goes as evidence that the conspiracy is
real.

Negative
symptoms: These symptoms are a lack of something that should be present;
behaviors that would be considered normal are either absent or diminished. For
example, people with schizophrenia often lack motivation and appear lazy. They
may be much slower to respond than most other people, have little to say when they
do speak, and appear as if they have no emotions, or exhibit emotions that are inappropriate
to the situation. They may also be unable to get pleasure from the things that
most people enjoy or from activities that once brought pleasure to them.
Families often get frustrated when a relative with schizophrenia does nothing
but sleep or watch TV — they wrongly attribute this behavior to the patient not
being willing to assume responsibility or “pull himself up by his bootstraps.”

Negative
symptoms are part and parcel of the illness for atleast 25 percent of people
with schizophrenia.

Cognitive
symptoms: Most people with the disorder suffer from impairments in memory,
learning, concentration, and their ability to make sound decisions. These
so-called cognitive symptoms interfere with an individual’s ability to learn
new things, remember things they once knew, and use skills they once had.
Cognitive symptoms can make it hard for a person to continue working at a job,
going to school, or participating in activities she may have enjoyed at one
time.

In
addition to the symptoms mentioned above, people with schizophrenia may also
have sleep problems, mood swings, and anxiety. They may experience difficulties
forming and maintaining social relationships with other people. They may look
different enough that other people notice that something is very odd or strange
about them and that they don’t quite look “normal.” They may have unusual ways
of doing things, have peculiar habits, dress inappropriately (such as wearing a
heavy coat or multiple layers of clothes in the summer), and/or be poorly
groomed, which can discourage other people from getting involved with them.

As kids, our senses were much drawn to
these lines on almost everywhere. On
some sense, it’s a bit confusing and perplexing to think that what we are being
told of is something that is unknown.

Stories upon stories, its probably the
most favorite, used and old lines of writers, storytellers, playwrights and
such the like. We often ignore these but
don’t you think it’s about time we look at these tiny facts?

These phrases and lines are long been
used by story tellers to imply the uncertainty, their lack of knowledge or just
plain creativeness (if that’s what you want to call it) on how it all began and
how it all ended.

In some ways, these lines were
formulated to trigger our imagination and likewise rely on the challenge given that
it is up to our minds as kids or grown ups to fill that empty space that our
storytellers left. Our storytellers
might find the beginning both too long and detailed that the story might loose
its nature or incomprehensible or complex in the end for fear of destroying the
stories’ main purpose. Or they were
simply too tired and exhausted to tell the stories to us on a more detailed
manner.

Anyways, the magic of these “lapses”
still continues to amaze and bring wonders to kids and grown-ups as well and as
the story went…and lived happily ever after”.

January 1, 2013

The
word Yoga comes from the ancient Sanskrit language spoken by the traditional
religious elite of India, the Brahmins. Yoga means “union” or “integration” and
also “discipline,” so the system of Yoga is called a unitive or integrating
discipline. Yoga seeks unity at various levels. First, it seeks to unite body
and mind, which people all too often separate. Some people are chronically “out
of the body.” They can’t feel their feet or the ground beneath them, as if they
hover like ghosts just above their bodies. They’re unable to cope with the
ordinary pressures of daily life and collapse under stress, and they’re often
confused and don’t understand their own emotions. They’re afraid of life and
easily emotionally hurt.

Yoga
also seeks to unite the rational mind and the emotions. People frequently bottle
up their emotions and don’t express their real feelings, choosing instead to
rationalize these feelings away. Chronic avoidance can become a serious health
hazard; if people aren’t aware that they’re suppressing feelings such as anger,
the anger consumes them from the inside out.

Here’s
how Yoga can help you with your personal growth:

It
can put you in touch with your real feelings and balance your emotional life.

It
can help you understand and accept yourself and feel comfortable with who you
are. You don’t have to “fake it” or reduce your life to constant role-playing. It
helps you become more able to empathize and communicate with others.

Yoga
is a powerful means of psychological integration. It makes you aware that
you’re part of a larger whole, not merely an island unto yourself. Humans can’t
thrive in isolation. Even the most independent individual is greatly indebted
to others. After your mind and body are happily reunited, this union with
others comes about naturally. The moral principles of Yoga are all-embracing,
encouraging you to seek kinship with everyone and everything.

Whenever
you hear that Yoga is just this or just that, your nonsense alert should kick
into action. Yoga is too comprehensive to reduce to any one thing — it’s like a
skyscraper with many floors and numerous rooms at each level. Yoga isn’t just
gymnastics, fitness training, huffing and puffing, or a way to control your
weight. It’s not just stress reduction, meditation, or some spiritual tradition
from India.

Yoga
is all these things and a great deal more. (You’d expect as much from a
tradition that’s been around for 5,000 years.) Yoga includes physical exercises
that look like gymnastics and have even been incorporated into Western
gymnastics. These postural exercises help you become or stay fit and trim,
control your weight, and reduce your stress level. Yoga also offers a whole
range of meditation practices, including breathing techniques that exercise
your lungs and calm your nervous system or charge your brain and the rest of
your body with delicious energy.

You
can also use Yoga as an efficient system of health care that has proven its
usefulness in both restoring and maintaining health. Yoga continues to gain
acceptance within the medical establishment; more and more physicians are
recommending Yoga to their patients not only for stress reduction but also as a
safe and sane method of exercise and physical therapy (notably, for the back
and knees).

But
Yoga is more than even a system of preventative or restorative health care.
Yoga looks at health from a broad, holistic perspective that’s only now being
rediscovered by avant-garde medicine. This perspective appreciates the enormous
influence of the mind — your psychological attitudes — on physical health.

Schizophrenia
is a no-fault, equal-opportunity illness most likely caused by a number of
factors, both genetic and environmental. Most scientists now accept a two-hit
theory for the cause of schizophrenia, which suggests that the genetic
susceptibility is compounded by one or more environmental factors:

Genetic
susceptibility: Based on family genetic history, some people are more
vulnerable to the disorder than other people are.

• Oxygen-deprivation or some
psychological or physical problem that occurs to the mother during pregnancy
and affects the developing fetus

• Emotional stress, such as the loss
of a parent or loved one during young adulthood.

Although
schizophrenia is genetically influenced, more than genetics is involved in its
development. Studies of identical twins show that, if one twin develops
schizophrenia, the other twin has only a 40 percent to 50 percent chance of also
developing the illness. There’s also an increased risk among fraternal twins
when one develops schizophrenia, the other has between a 10 percent and 17
percent chance, far less than that of identical twins. Having a parent with
schizophrenia also increases a person’s risk of developing the disease, to
about 10 percent. And if you have a sibling with the disorder — not your twin —
you have a 6 percent to 9 percent chance of developing the disorder yourself.

Scientists
still don’t know the precise causes of schizophrenia for any particular individual,
yet family members and patients themselves tend to dwell on (or even obsess
about) finding a “reason” or a “cause” for the illness. Although this instinct
is a natural one, finding the precise cause or explanation is impossible, not
to mention counterproductive — finding a reason doesn’t help treatment, and it
often creates unnecessary and misplaced guilt, with one family member blaming
another.

Schizophrenia
is a brain disorder characterized by a variety of different symptoms, many of
which can dramatically affect an individual’s way of thinking and ability to
function. Most scientists think that the disorder is due to one or more
problems in the development of the brain that results in neurochemical
imbalances, although no one fully understands why schizophrenia develops.

People
with schizophrenia have trouble distinguishing what’s real from what’s not.
They are not able to fully control their emotions or think logically, and they
usually have trouble relating to other people. They often suffer from
hallucinations; much of their bizarre behavior is usually due to individuals
acting in response to something they think is real but is only in their minds.

Unfortunately,
because of the way schizophrenia has been inaccurately portrayed in the media
over many decades, the illness is one of the most feared and misunderstood of
all the physical and mental disorders. Schizophrenia is a long-term relapsing
disorder because it has symptoms that wax and wane, worsen and get better, over
time. Similar to many physical illnesses (such as diabetes, asthma, and
arthritis), schizophrenia is highly treatable — although it isn’t yet
considered curable.

But
the long-term outcomes of schizophrenia aren’t as grim as was once believed.
Although the disorder can have a course that resulted in long-term disability,
one in five persons recovered completely. Some people have only one psychotic
episode, others have repeated episodes with normal periods of functioning in
between, and others have continuing problems from which they never fully
recover.

December 30, 2012

Each year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.

After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.

Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.

When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety."

And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.